Sarah Hanson-Young says it would be ‘honourable’ for Dorinda Cox to resign
Josh Butler
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has criticised former colleague Dorinda Cox for switching to the Labor party, saying “the honourable thing” would be to resign if a senator didn’t feel they could continue with the party for which they were elected.
Cox was elected to the Senate for a six-year term in 2022, but this week said her values were more aligned with Labor and will now sit with the government.
Senators are allowed to switch parties once elected and continue for the rest of their term: such situations have occurred regularly in recent years, and each time it is accompanied by a discussion about whether that person should be forced to resign instead.
The most recent notable example was former Labor senator Fatima Payman, who received a chorus of strong criticism from Labor politicians and luminaries when she quit to sit on the crossbench as well as calls for her to return her seat to Labor.
Hanson-Young, speaking at Parliament House today, said:
It’s not fair to the voters and indeed any of the parties involved that if somebody is elected as one party and then jumps ship later on.
I do think the honourable thing is to resign from the parliament. But, you know, that’s not the rules and we’re left where we are.
Hanson-Young referred to Payman’s situation, claiming there was “a bit of hypocrisy, of course, about how Labor has responded to this”.
It wasn’t OK to jump ship for Fatima Payman, but apparently when it’s people coming to them, it’s all OK.
Key events
Ben Doherty
A brief notes on trade deficits and surpluses
It should be noted there is nothing inherently wrong with a trade deficit. Trade is of benefit to both the sending and receiving nations.
At an individual level: someone has money and wants to buy something, someone else has that thing and wants to sell it. It is a win-win: the buyer gets the product they want, and the seller gets money for the goods they produced. No one is forcing anyone to buy (or sell) anything.
America’s trade deficit with most countries occurs for the simple reason that America is a rich country: Americans have a lot of money to spend and they buy more stuff from overseas than they sell to foreigners.
Trump has consistently said he doesn’t like trade deficits, but most government leaders don’t believe it is a valid metric to judge economic policy.
Ben Doherty
ABS confirms trade surplus with USA in January 2025
The Australian Bureau of Statistics issued this statement (along with this data) today:
Historically, Australia has had an annual trade deficit with the USA, importing more from the USA each year than it exports. In 2024, imports from the USA reached $50.6b and exports to the USA reached $23.8b resulting in a trade deficit with the USA of $26.9b.
Trade balances between countries are typically assessed on an annual basis due to the volatility of monthly trade data. However, it is worth noting the monthly trade balance with the USA moved into surplus for the first time in January 2025 following a sharp rise in exports of non-monetary gold. The monthly surplus was maintained for three consecutive months but returned to deficit in April 2025, when gold exports returned to regular trading levels.
Australia’s exports of non-monetary gold to the USA have historically risen during periods of economic uncertainty such as the global financial crisis in 2008, and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Despite these previous peaks, the current rise in non-monetary gold far exceeds previous export levels, and has driven the Australia-USA trade balance into a monthly surplus for the first time on record.
Australia’s trade deficit with the US has been one of its key arguments to the US for relief from Trump’s universal tariff regime (along with a decades-old Free Trade Agreement, and being an unswerving security ally). Australia has been hit with a 10% tariff on most goods going into the US. Steel and aluminium imports attract a 50% tariff.
Albanese will argue that tariff-free trade with the US benefits America (and Americans): these figures from the ABS support that argument.
Ben Doherty
Australia’s trade deficit could help Albanese’s tariff talks with Donald Trump
As Anthony Albanese prepares for talks on tariffs with Donald Trump later this month, he has an extra arrow in his quiver of arguments: Australia has returned to trade deficit with the US.
Australia has, for decades, run a consistent – and large – trade deficit with the US. Put simply, Australia imports more from America than it exports to America. (This is a trade surplus from the US perspective: as Donald Trump would like it).
But, for the first time on record, in January this year, Australia started running a trade surplus with the US (a trade deficit, from Washington’s perspective) driven by a massive spike in gold being sold to the US.
Investors typically turn to gold in times of economic uncertainty, which the Trump Administration 2.0 has inarguably been. Australia shipped a record amount of gold to the US in January – worth US$2.9bn – the highest figure on record.
However, normal levels of gold trading have resumed and the more typical trade imbalance (in America’s favour) has returned.
Graham Readfearn
Marine heatwave engulfed area of ocean five times the size of Australia in 2024
Almost 40 million sq kilometres of ocean around south-east Asia and the Pacific – an area five times the size of Australia – was engulfed in a marine heatwave in 2024, a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report has revealed.
WMO scientists said the record heat – on land and in the ocean – was mostly driven by the climate crisis and coincided with a string of extreme weather events, from deadly landslides in the Philippines to floods in Australia and rapid glacier loss in Indonesia.
The WMO secretary general, Prof Celeste Saulo, said ocean heat and acidification had combined to “inflict long-lasting damage” to marine ecosystems and economies. Saulo said:
Sea-level rise is an existential threat to entire island nations. It is increasingly evident that we are fast running out of time to turn the tide.
Read more here:
Share market flirts with highest-ever close
Australia’s share market is within ten points of its highest close despite a mixed Wall Street session after weaker-than-expected US economic data, AAP reports.
The S&P/ASX200 rose 4.4 points, or 0.05%, to 8,546.4, as the broader All Ordinaries gained 4.9 points, or 0.06%, to 8,775.1.
In early trading the top 200 pushed ahead of its record close of 8,555.8 on Valentine’s Day, but had slipped by lunchtime.
The index has not yet pipped its intraday record level of 8,615.2, also set on 14 February.
On Wednesday, Commonwealth Bank became the first ASX-listed company to be valued at $300 billion as its share price cracked $182 for the first time.
Caitlin Cassidy
ANU investigates possible hack after vice-chancellor’s account liked ‘highly offensive’ LinkedIn posts
The Australian National University (ANU) has contacted authorities about a possible hacking incident after its vice-chancellor’s account liked a number of “highly offensive” LinkedIn posts about Gaza and Julie Bishop.
One of the posts liked by Genevieve Bell’s account was an inflammatory post about Gaza, while another made negative comments about Bishop, the ANU chancellor and a former foreign minister.
A spokesperson for ANU said it was made aware on Wednesday morning that Bell’s LinkedIn account had been “compromised”.
Read more here:
City of Perth suspends e-scooter hire schemes after man dies
The City of Perth will suspend e-scooter hire schemes from today, following the death of a father hit by one in recent days.
Police have charged a 24-year-old e-scooter rider with allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol when she hit Perth father Thanh Phan on Saturday night in the city’s CBD.
The 51-year-old father was rushed to hospital where he underwent surgery for swelling on the brain, but later died.
On Thursday morning, the City of Perth deputy lord mayor, Bruce Reynolds, said:
A tragic event occurred at the weekend and our thoughts are with the deceased man’s family at this very sad time.
In response to the fatality, the City of Perth has suspended the hiring of e-scooters from 12pm today.
Patrick Commins
Pocock says companies ‘taking the piss’ after reform to petroleum resource rent tax
Independent senator David Pocock and teal MP Zali Steggall say Labor’s 2023 reforms to the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) did not go far enough and that major gas exporters are still not paying their fair share.
The PRRT is anticipated to generate $4bn less than when it was tweaked two years ago to ensure the east-coast LNG giants paid some measure of the tax.
Pocock told the ABC that the PRRT needed to be revisited as companies were “taking the piss”, and that the government had chosen the weakest of a range of reform options, backed by the Greens.
Steggall also called for a beefed-up resource rent tax, and accused Labor of being swayed by oil and gas vested interests.
The comments come after experts told Guardian Australia that the PRRT was allowing foreign companies to profit from Australia’s mineral wealth while delivering “almost nothing” to the national purse.
Chris Richardson said “it is fair to say that how we tax gas in Australia is a massive fail”.
The PRRT is levied at the rate of 40% on taxable profits, but has failed to operate as intended thanks to overly generous rules allowing gas companies to claim previous years of capital expenditure against those taxable profits.
Experts also say the taxable profits are based on an undervaluation of the underlying resource.
Sarah Hanson-Young says it would be ‘honourable’ for Dorinda Cox to resign
Josh Butler
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has criticised former colleague Dorinda Cox for switching to the Labor party, saying “the honourable thing” would be to resign if a senator didn’t feel they could continue with the party for which they were elected.
Cox was elected to the Senate for a six-year term in 2022, but this week said her values were more aligned with Labor and will now sit with the government.
Senators are allowed to switch parties once elected and continue for the rest of their term: such situations have occurred regularly in recent years, and each time it is accompanied by a discussion about whether that person should be forced to resign instead.
The most recent notable example was former Labor senator Fatima Payman, who received a chorus of strong criticism from Labor politicians and luminaries when she quit to sit on the crossbench as well as calls for her to return her seat to Labor.
Hanson-Young, speaking at Parliament House today, said:
It’s not fair to the voters and indeed any of the parties involved that if somebody is elected as one party and then jumps ship later on.
I do think the honourable thing is to resign from the parliament. But, you know, that’s not the rules and we’re left where we are.
Hanson-Young referred to Payman’s situation, claiming there was “a bit of hypocrisy, of course, about how Labor has responded to this”.
It wasn’t OK to jump ship for Fatima Payman, but apparently when it’s people coming to them, it’s all OK.
Adam Morton
More on the no-confidence motion
Winter said Rockliff had lost the confidence of parliament after last week’s budget, including over a plan to sell publicly owned assets. He reaffirmed Labor’s commitment that it “will not do a deal with or form government with the Greens”.
The no-confidence motion, moved yesterday, is still being debated.
Several speakers have suggested Winter expected Rockliff to resign or be pushed out, and for the weakened Liberals to elect another leader if the motion was successful. But the Liberals have backed the premier.
The Liberals have been governing with just 14 seats in the 35-seat parliament. Labor has 10, the Greens five, the Jacqui Lambie Network one and there are five independents.
Watch some of Rockliff’s recent remarks below:
Adam Morton
Tasmanian opposition leader says Labor won’t form government with Greens, ‘ready to go’ to early election
The Tasmanian Labor leader, Dean Winter, who kicked off chaos in the state parliament on Tuesday by proposing a vote of no-confidence on the Liberal premier, Jeremy Rockliff, has declared his party will not form a government with the Greens and is ready for an early election.
As we reported earlier, Rockliff fronted the media before the start of parliament and said he would advise the acting governor to call an early election if the vote – as is widely expected – is passed today, and if Labor did not form government with the Greens.
Rockliff said an early election, just 15 months after Tasmanians last voted, would be “on Mr Winter’s head”.
In a statement, Winter responded that if this happened Rockliff would be “the only person forcing Tasmania to an early election”.
If he is granted an election, Labor is ready to go because we strongly believe Tasmania needs change.
PM again says bullying allegations against Dorinda Cox have been ‘dealt with’
Albanese was asked about allegations of bullying made by senator Lidia Thorpe against former Greens senator Dorinda Cox, who shockingly defected to Labor earlier this week. The prime minister reiterated that he believes those allegations had been handled. Thorpe, however, recently said the process had been “far from satisfactory”.
Albanese said this morning:
I have answered those questions, but they were dealt with. There is an independent process for those things to be dealt with. It is not surprising that the Greens political party will put forward some opposition to what has occurred, but Senator Cox has made a decision, and she has decided that the way that she will advance her values is through a party of government.
Nine newspapers first reported last October about the complaints, and at the time Cox apologised for “the distress this may have caused” while saying there was “significant missing context”.
Read more about Thorpe’s allegations here:
Henry Belot
Head of one of the largest Australian gambling companies resigns
The chief executive of one of Australia’s largest gambling companies, Entain, has resigned and will leave the company at the start of July.
Dean Shannon, who runs the Ladbrokes and Neds brands in Australia, briefed staff on his departure on Thursday morning.
Shannon has not publicly commented on the reason for his departure but sources at the briefing, not authorised to speak publicly, said he told staff his departure would give the company clear air after a damaging few months.
The nation’s financial intelligence agency, Austrac, recently commenced federal court proceedings against the company alleging serious and systemic violations of anti-money laundering rules between 2018 and 2024.
Austrac alleged Entain Australia accepted $152m in bets from 17 high-risk customers who had “suspected criminal profiles and associations” despite being aware they may have been laundering money.
Entain Australia is yet to file its response to Austrac’s statement of claim but has acknowledged the allegations and said the company is taking them “extremely seriously”. In late March, Shannon said the company was strengthening its anti-money laundering compliance arrangements.
Albanese goes after Stockdale’s comments about ‘assertive women’
The prime minister just addressed former Liberal party president Alan Stockdale’s comments, saying the party needed to have “a good look at themselves and their structures”. He said a press conference:
The statements by Mr Stockdale to the Liberal Women’s Group, of all people to make those statements to, that somehow you might need to actually have discrimination in favour of men because women were too assertive in the Liberal party, has been met with derision by members of the Liberal party. …
I think that the Liberal party need to have a good look at themselves and their structures and it will be interesting to watch what goes on with this restructuring of the New South Wales branch
An update on the Pheobe Bishop disappearance: police release housemate without charge
A man has been released without charge after police spent hours questioning him over the “suspicious” disappearance of a 17-year-old girl, AAP reports.
James Wood, 34, was taken into custody on Wednesday and released several hours later without charge, police said in an update on Thursday.
Pheobe Bishop was last seen near Bundaberg airport about 8.30am on 15 May after booking a trip to Western Australia to see her boyfriend. CCTV footage showed Pheobe never arrived at the airport terminal.
You can read more here:
